


Sick

by Morpheus626



Category: Mr. Robot (TV)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:42:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25833700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morpheus626/pseuds/Morpheus626
Summary: A request from @elliotslament on Tumblr “Can you do an Elliot x reader where Elliot ends up getting food poisoned in a mass poisoning and the reader tries to save him and others”This is just a little sort of AU snapshot with a gender neutral reader, in which some scary folks outside of any hacker society decide to wreak havoc, and pull Elliot and Y/N into the mix.tw for a lot of talk of vomit. I know that doesn’t bug everyone, and I don’t go into like grossly excessive detail, but I wanted to err on the side of caution!
Relationships: Elliot Alderson/Reader
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	Sick

“I was the first,” Elliot says, bent over the sink in the kitchen. He barely made it inside, pushing past you, Flipper darting away from him, vomiting so hard it had to hurt. “There’ll be others.” 

Half asleep, you rub at your eyes. “What time is it?” 

“Too late,” he tries to say more, but retches again, his body shaking after it. “Or it will be. They gave instructions...” 

“Who?” you ask, trying to wake up, trying to get him a washcloth, to take the paper from his hands. And paper? That’s not right, not normal, not how the people he usually has problems with interact, at least not in your experience in the time you’ve been with him. 

“I don’t know,” he sounds miserable, stomach muscles jerking uncontrollably as he slips to the floor. “But I can’t go. I can’t help now, not like this.” 

You start to scan the instructions. A twisted scavenger hunt, and in a moment, you can tell it isn’t possible. 

“Elliot, even if you were okay...no one could do this. They want you going places in minutes, and it would take you hours to get from part of the city to the other, and that’s if there isn’t mass chaos with this.” 

He shakes his head. “We have to try.” 

There are no details on their plot, aside from the fact that it’s a poisoning, and they somehow claim to have access to restaurants across the city, from fast food to black tie reservation only spots, and their agents will initiate the plot within the next two hours unless Elliot can complete everything they’ve assigned. 

“Someone’s fucking with you,” you say gently, rubbing his back. “This isn’t Dark Army, is it?” 

He shrugs. “I don’t think so. This isn’t...it doesn’t seem like them.” 

“So this is some sick fuck, who probably would have handed this to the next asshole walking along, if you hadn’t happened along first,” you say. “Did you get a look at who gave you this?” 

“Some kid. In the park. Shoved this into my hand, ran off before I could catch him. I went after him, and someone, I don’t know who-” 

He pulls at his upper lip, and you can see the remnants of what look like crushed pills there. “They took me down, damn near had their hand down my throat to get whatever they use into me.”

He gives you an odd look, then shakes his head. “Call Darlene, she can help us get this done.” 

You find your phone, text Darlene. But the only response is a sick face emoji, and “I’ll call u later.” 

“I think they found her too,” you say, watching as Elliot rests, petting Flipper as she lays next to him. 

“You then,” he manages, shuddering, only barely managing to stumble back to his feet to vomit in the sink again. 

Flipper whines, and you nod your agreement. “Elliot, you need someone here to help you. We don’t even really know what this is-” 

He looks over at you, and your heart breaks. Equal parts fear and frustration and hurt. 

“Okay,” you sigh, and rush to get dressed, ignoring the beside clock that lets you know you have at best, three hours until work, until you’ll have to leave Elliot alone and pretend that none of this has happened. 

His breathing is steady, but he’s back on the floor again, petting Flipper, the bowl you usually for popcorn on movie nights in front of him. “I’ve got an idea.” 

You nod. “Is it for me to stay here, like I should do, and make sure you’re going to be okay?” 

He waves that idea away. “Later. Don’t follow the list. Go to the last place first.” 

“What exactly is telling you I should do that?” 

“Just a feeling,” he mumbles, and his lids flutter as he slumps against the cabinets under the sink. 

“You’re delirious,” you murmur. “I’ll go to the last place on the list, but that’s it. Then I’m coming home.” 

You don’t give him time to argue, out the door with Flipper’s mournful whining still in your ear. You think too late about how you’ve not grabbed anything that could be a weapon (but even then, what would you do? You don’t even know who you’re going to meet, if anyone will even be there.) 

It’s nearly two and half hours on foot from Elliot’s place to the last spot on the list, the Roosevelt Island Light house, and there’s a part of you fearing that it’s pointless. There could well be nothing behind this, and no one there. 

And it seems that way, until it isn’t. 

Just a man. Nondescript, you could have passed one or fifty men like him on the way to the lighthouse. 

“You aren’t who I’m supposed to be meeting. Who are you?” 

“The person who doesn’t know if you’re who _I’m_ supposed to be meeting,” you reply. 

“You don’t care about all those lives? We gave the instructions to him for a reason.” 

“The reason of fucking with him,” you reply. “So what?”

“We-” 

“What?” you scoff. “Are an army? Have minions all over the city? Could ‘shut it all down, man’? Is that what you were about to say?” 

“Have already begun,” he smiles gleefully, sickeningly, as he glances at his phone. “You broke the rules, and they saw you do it. Oh, this is going to be exciting!” 

He trots away, and you shake your head as you sit on one of the nearby benches to text Elliot about the encounter. 

You have the message mostly typed up, a good fifteen minutes of pain-staking fighting with the auto-correct on your phone, when the news alerts start pinging. 

Restaurants shutting down, emergency services dispatched in huge numbers, and a warning from the city to toss out any food bought within the last hour that was not prepared at home. 

“Fuck,” you whisper to yourself as you start for home, moving as quickly as you can. 

A million thoughts race. Would it have mattered if you had followed the impossible task list? Who was watching you, and are they watching you now? 

And what are you going to tell Elliot, to explain that just by going, by doing what you both thought would be a way around the bullshit he’d been handed, you managed to fuck it up. 

When you make it back to the apartment, he’s on the couch, looking as sickly as before, but more upset now. 

“What the fuck happened?” he asks, his voice cold.

Flipper fusses at your feet, and you scoop her up before joining him on the couch to watch the news report pulled up on his laptop. 

“They saw me go to the last location. I don’t know how-” 

“Did you check to see if anyone was tailing you?” he asks, eyes wide as he stares into yours, before he ducks away to vomit into the large plastic (and unfortunately, his only) Tupperware bowl set on the floor near the couch. 

“No, but I didn’t think I had to!” you protest. “This was only some stupid bullshit, some trick...” 

He gestures to the screen. “Some trick.” 

You fight the urge to argue with him. “You’re just sick right now, so I’m going to ignore that.” 

“The hospitals will be full up,” he mutters. 

You look to the bowl, and your chest tightens at the sight of what looks like pure stomach acid and bile. “Elliot, we need to go.” 

He shakes his head. “No point. I’ll either survive this, or I won’t.” 

“Elliot!” 

“It’s my fault that this is even happening,” he says sharply. “What good would it do anyway? If I’m going to die, and I don’t think I will, I’d rather die here.” 

You hug Flipper close for a moment. “If nothing else, at least say it’s my fault too.” 

The flickering of the screen reflects in his eyes, and you choose to watch those instead of the news report. 

Until an update pops up mid-report. 

“Multiple people have reported having odd and upsetting instructional forms forced into their hands by strangers, ranging in age from children all the way to the elderly,” the newswoman says, and your breathing starts to return to normal. “These victims report that the instructions were all strange and nearly if not completely impossible to complete, including some as terrible as being told to kill their own family members to prevent the on-going city-wide poisoning. Police have confirmed via arrested suspects who helped perpetrate the poisoning scheme that this was meant to cause further confusion in the city, as well as to make it harder for police and other emergency services to respond to everyone needing them during this time.” 

Elliot sighs. “You were right.” 

“If it helps,” you say. “I don’t know that this is better than the alternative. Either way, people are sick, hurt. People could die, if they can’t get help, have other medical conditions...” 

He nods. “In a weird way, it’s still better though. It wasn’t just us. It’s nobody’s fault, except the sick fucks that actually did it.” 

You reach over, and let a finger linger on his hand. Your usual test, to make sure he’s comfortable with being touched, that he wants it. 

He takes your hand, and squeezes once. 

“Will you let me take care of you now? I can’t take care of any of those other people,” you say. “But I can take care of you.” 

He nods, and lays back against the couch. “I’m sorry I got upset.” 

“You had reason to be upset. It looked like...you know what it looked like. I was upset with myself,” you say. “No hard feelings. But please, let me get you some water, and a blanket, and god, I need to go buy you some Pedialyte or something until you feel like eating again, and some broth-” 

He interrupts you with a kiss to your hand. “I’d do more, but you don’t want to kiss me right now. It’s gross.” 

“Maybe after some water,” you say, and set Flipper down so you can go to the kitchen for a glass. 

Flipper immediately hops over to Elliot and climbs into his lap to lick his lips, and you laugh. “See, Flipper will tide you over until you feel clean enough to kiss me again.” 

He smiles, a small smile, but a smile nonetheless, and you feel a little bit better. There’s so much yet unanswered, and as you listen to the report continue, you wonder if you’ll ever know fully why the people that did it (a group with no formal name as of the latest update scrolling across the ticker at the bottom of the streamed live report.) 

But maybe, you figure you’ll have to be satisfied with this. With knowing that at least it wasn’t truly your fault, or Elliot’s or anyone else, just the fault of those who performed and helped with the poisoning. With the tiny smile from Elliot that lets you know he’s likely to be okay, though god knows he’ll need to rest (and actually rest, not just keep working on various things from his laptop while laying in bed.) 

The city screams with emergency sirens, and part of you screams with it. But the part that doesn’t is the part that helps Elliot lay down in your lap, brings the straw in the glass to his mouth so he can safely sip, and holds his hand in yours until he finally falls asleep with Flipper laying on his stomach. 

You make a mental note to call in sick to work. Elliot will need you there, and with everything going on, it’s likely that various workplaces will end up partially or completely closed down. One more person calling in sick certainly won’t hurt. 


End file.
